Hi from Alex, Miles and Cressy at Charlotte’s BAG.

Since our first newsletter back in February lots has been happening and we’ve been pretty busy! We hope you will be interested to hear our progress.

OVER £113,000 IN CHARLOTTE’S BAG!
This is an absolutely amazing total, and it means we’ve almost doubled our first year’s fundraising target of £60,000. We are particularly indebted to one bereaved family who came to us with a truly significant one-off donation and will continue to support us in the future. Thank you to them (they want to remain anonymous). We’re also so grateful to the people who continue to help us, and can honestly say that every single donation is truly appreciated.

We are currently working on the best way to deliver the first tranche of money to Stergios and his team at King’s College Hospital; this involves making sure we have a clear paper trail so that the money goes directly to his research and cannot be used for anything else within the hospital.

Our big media story
We were planning to hold a media event in February; for logistical reasons this got put off until April; and then the snap General Election was announced! Rather than risk our story getting ‘lost’ in a sea of political coverage we decided to hold off until after the Election, and will probably go public later in the summer. We have a fantastic story under wraps which will be really significant news and should bring hope to future glioblastoma patients.

Vloggers support Charlotte’s BAG
Charlotte’s vlog became her way of telling the world her story, and we are delighted that three of the current top vloggers, Jack, Conor and Anna Maynard, are following Charlotte’s Legacy on Facebook and @alexeades1 on twitter. This has made our subscriber figures leap overnight, and it’s great to be raising awareness of glioblastoma with young people like this.

Donate the Change to Charlotte’s BAG
We are very proud to be one of 13 charities chosen to be part of a new contactless payment donate to charity scheme. As one of the newest charities on the block, we now find ourselves rubbing shoulders with big fish like the NSPCC and Help for Heroes! This will be going to a trial soon; we have 200 payment devices to give away for FREE (normal price £25 each). The devices, in a range of colours and designs, include key fobs, wristbands and loops for your watch, meaning that you never have to fish around for your card. You can donate as much or as little as you like when paying (eg 10p per transaction, or a maximum of £5 a month say – it’s your choice). It’s run in conjunction with Barclaycard, so it’s perfectly safe to use. For more information, or if you’d like to take part, email info@charlottesbag.com.

Charlotte’s BAG: not just a charity… a M&S charity!
Charlotte’s BAG has been named the staff charity for the year by M&S in Shoreham, just down the road from Brighton. Over the course of a year, M&S supports three national charities corporately and publicly, but for the other nine months of the year staff in each branch choose their own charity for which they fundraise internally. We were nominated for this by Laurence Allen who lost his wife to glioblastoma, and we are so grateful to him for putting us forward.

Bob’s triathlon
Family friend of Alex and Miles, Bob Machin is undertaking his first ever triathlon in aid of Charlotte’s BAG. Bob is the first to admit that this is a daunting prospect (what with his dodgy knees and advanced age – his words not ours!) and is very much looking forward to a pint or seven at the end of it all. For more information about what Bob’s doing and why, check out www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/charlottes-bag

Envitia support Charlotte’s BAG
Staff at geospatial technology firm Envitia, based in Horsham, are holding a fundraising day for Charlotte’s BAG in May, which we are told will involve excellent cakes! Thank you to them.

John’s shift for Charlotte
Huge thanks to John Cooper who works in Ambulatory Care at the Emergency Dept at QEQM Hospital in Margate, Kent – he donated his wages from a shift to Charlotte’s BAG, and shared posters and information around the staffroom. Thanks John!

Staff reunion puts £230 in Charlotte’s BAG
The first reunion of staff at Charlotte’s old school, Cardinal Newman in Hove, took place recently, and staff members old and new kindly donated £230 on the night.

Coming soon: Charlotte’s Auction
We are currently planning an ebay auction of celebrity memorabilia. This includes something for everyone interested in sport, music, books… a signed Roy Keane autobiography; signed photo of footballer Ian Wright; an Arsenal shirt; signed books by authors Ellie Griffiths and vlogger Marcus Butler; framed and signed posters from vloggers Jack and Conor Maynard. Items are still coming in, so if you’ve got any celeb contacts who might like to put something our way we’d be very grateful! We’ve chosen to do it by ebay this time, rather than the Charlotte’s BAG website, so that we can reach as wide as an audience as possible.

Calling Spike Milligan fans!
BBC man John Henty is organising a show called “They Appeared on the Pier”, and all proceeds from the event on Wednesday June 14 will go to Charlotte’s BAG. This celebration of Spike Milligan will include a very rare recording of Spike’s early appearance on the Palace Pier which has never been broadcast publicly before. Tickets cost £5 at the door on the day.

Easyfundraising
If you shop online you can donate to Charlotte’s BAG for free with over 4,000 retailers – we’ve raised over £250 this way so far from 39 people shopping. We know most people use the internet for shopping fairly regularly now, and this is a brilliant way to help Charlotte’s BAG. Just go to www.easyfundraising.org, download the button, select Charlotte’s BAG as your chosen charity, and it does it all for you, at NO COST TO YOU.

Would you like to help?
If you’d like to organise your own event for Charlotte’s BAG we’d be very grateful. If you let us know what you are doing we can write a press release for you, add your event onto our website and share your story via our social media.

Keep updated about Charlotte’s BAG
We have the Charlotte’s Legacy page on Facebook, @alexeades1 on twitter, www.charlottesbag.com and www.youtube.com/charlotteeades. If you know anyone else who might be interested, please ask them to check us out too – or forward this newsletter.

Contact us
Comments, feedback, ideas – please get in touch via info@charlottesbag.com and one of us will get back to you as soon as possible.

And finally…
Why support Charlotte’s BAG? Glioblastoma kills. It does not discriminate by age, sex or gender, and its progress is rapid and cruel, stripping the person of their faculties while leaving the conscious mind intact. Only 1 per cent of UK national cancer research funding goes into brain tumours… not surprisingly, there has been minimal progress, and we want to change that.

With very best wishes and all our thanks
Alex, Miles and Cressy
The Charlotte’s BAG team

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